Tell it to Jesus...

Some days just do not go as planned… Yesterday, for some strange reason, I decided to feed the cows first. Woody jumped in the Kubota with me and we headed towards the pasture. The new calf, Little Ferd’s first baby, was running around with his tail held high in the air. I fed them sweet feed and watched them for awhile, counting heads to make sure everyone was there. Tilly is beginning to look old but she can still clear a path for herself to the feed trough with that regal crown of horns. Sassy is as sassy as she has always been and Biscuits and Gravy (so named because she is milk gravy creamy white with red and black speckles) was anxious not to miss a morsel of feed. Sitting with the cows always slows me down, quietens my internal discourse, and connects me to my childhood. When I got back up the hill to the house, I walked down to the stable to muck stalls and put out hay for the donkeys and horses. After feeding Bud the Barn Cat, I let the horses out then opened the donkey stall. My stomach lurched towards my throat as I saw Shirley’s face. Blood was gushing from her eye, the upper eyelid was hanging and the lower eyelid was ripped loose. I quickly put the donkeys in the small holding pen behind the stable and ran up to the house to call the vet. An hour later a nice young man drove up and we went to work on Shirley. He gave her some happy juice, deadened her eye and began stitching her up. She stood patiently, a little drunk, as I held her head up for surgery. Two hours later she walked towards the pasture, wobbly but in no pain. I, however, was coming down from my ER high and beginning to feel the aftereffects. Michael called in the afternoon and I tried to tell him some of the details but his vagal nerve response kicked in (and a waiting client) so I cut it short. Mama came to check on Shirley and me but she stayed up at the top of the hill and called down to me. I called Diane but she was on her way to meet a friend and caught in traffic so she was distracted. Leisa was sympathetic but by then I had realized the gory details were not particularly appealing to those who were not there for the ordeal. Where could I go to lay down all these feelings and the worries? As I sat and drank my afternoon cup of hot tea, an old hymn title came to mind… Tell It to Jesus. I went to my piano, opened my old hymnal and found it. As I played and sang those sweet words from my childhood church worship, a calm settled over my frazzled self. In the singing, tears began to flow, not just for my fractured day, but also for those I love who are struggling with illness, old age, the death of a beloved grandchild, uncertain futures. “Are you weary, are you heavyhearted? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Are you grieving over joys departed? Tell it to Jesus alone. Do the tears flow down your cheeks unbidden? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Have you sins that to men’s eyes are hidden? Tell it to Jesus alone. Do you fear the gathering clouds of sorrow? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow? Tell it to Jesus alone.” Dear One, Thank you for listening to me yesterday… all the gory details, all the memories of other emergency runs. For those I love who are in the middle of their own fractured lives and sorrows, hear the prayers of their hearts, oh Lord. Make me in your image, one who hears and loves and lifts up when life is more pain than pleasure. Amen.

Glad reunion...

As we walked up to the museum entrance, the small group turned to look and then began to laugh with arms outstretched for hugs. Friends not seen for fifty years…high school friends… gathered for their reunion in Birmingham, Alabama. Many of Michael’s school friends were in class together for all twelve grades, living in the same neighborhood, some even a part of his life since his birth. And now, after lives well lived, aged like fine wine, they began a two day journey of reconnection, a journey fueled by loving remembrance and gratitude for the present. I was an interested bystander, one of the spouses spending time waiting, meeting and greeting, observing the process. Name tags with senior pictures helped the identification of changed faces and bodies. The jockeying of earlier reunions for status and appearance seemed to be reduced by the passage of time. No one escapes unscathed in the aging game. Everyone put their best foot forward. Hair dye, a toupee or two, new clothing, carefully applied makeup and other gilding of the lilies highlighted the specialness of the occasion. But the one image that overrode all other images was the sight of these people, long separated, hugging, laughing, talking, sharing their lives with one another in glad reunion. Michael spent time with Carol, his girl friend in grades three through six and in high school. They were able to have some time to talk about their shared past, remember the good times and apologize for old hurts. Cheerleaders gathered, bouncing around and for a moment, it was as if they were once again teenagers in the halls of Banks High. Everywhere I looked Saturday night, I saw happy faces, heard the roar of the past and the present merging in Alta Dena Country Club as remembrances flowed like a river of time. When the commotion overwhelmed my introverted soul, I walked outside to sit in a swing and watch the moon rise over the golf course. The darkness of the night was broken with pinpoints of light, homes around the course, and the moon rise lit the sky with a pale glow. As I listened to the party inside, I began to imagine the glad reunion I believe comes when we die. Wonderful as this gathering was, I imagine the final reunion will be one of perfect love and joyous recognition. I know this by faith not by any demonstrable experiment or testimony. A new study is being funded to determine the reality of the afterlife. The scientists promise a fair, unbiased result. This amuses me no end. How can one prove or disprove a reality from which we have few return travelers? Near death experiences and death experiences are all subjective, peculiar to the person who lives through their own death and no one has yet returned after a burial to confirm or deny the existence of the afterlife. It has been and will continue to be an article of faith, knowledge through mystery not defined by rational thinking. Just as the Banks High School Class of 1962 gathered everyone into a loving embrace regardless of their place in the class, so will God gather us up in his loving arms when we breathe our last. “Fear not”, Jesus said. “I go to prepare a place for you and where I go, you will go also.” How that happens, I do not know. When that happens, I do not know. But my heart knows my soul, my essential self will be gathered up to God and have a glad reunion with all who have loved me and whom I have loved. Thanks be to God for love incarnate, love that will not let me go even in the cold waters of death… love that sustains and seeks to be my final resting place…home, sweet home at last.

Keepers of the flame...

She came out on the porch with a stack of folders and papers, sat down in a rocking chair and began to shuffle through the magazines, articles and typewritten pages. Our conversation, liberally laced with laughter, rolled on as she began to pass around different sheets of information. One sheet, a program from a weekend gathering of Baptist students, was covered on the back with our individual contact information… names and addresses(no zip codes) carefully written in our best handwriting… a record of our first meeting as a group. We passed the sheet around and remembered the flame of youth represented in those carefully inscribed signatures. Courting stories, marriage and divorce stories told with laughter and tears kept us rolling along on the conversational river. Another typewritten sheet was pulled out with numerous handwritten additions of spouse’s names, dates, new addresses and phone numbers. Stories of Tim’s death and funeral, Viet Nam, professional and personal pursuits were accompanied by saved magazines, articles, pictures and newspaper stories. Our lives since our first meeting were held in those black folders, those stacks of yellowed typewritten papers, carefully gathered together and saved for this moment. Mary Lynn is the keeper of the flame for our Cherokee work camp family. Even in the years when we were distant from each other, raising families, marrying and divorcing, working, living our lives, she kept the cards, letters, articles and pictures that came her way, gathering us together even when we were far from each other. And on that tin roofed porch with rain as a musical accompaniment, we warmed our hearts and souls around the fire of remembrance. Those not present were held in loving arms of unspoken prayer as we shared what we knew of their current stories… new marriage for Donna and Francis, spouse’s health struggles, retirement, family reunions in other places… and they were a part of us, absent in body but present in spirit. I look at the picture my sister Catherine sent me last night, six of us laughing, side by side, older and weathered by life, and give thanks for the keepers of our flame of family. I give thanks for Mary Lynn who keeps the memories of our lives together and apart bound up in folders. I give thanks for the God who brought us together all those long years ago and has kept us to this day. In Isaiah 43 I read… Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. This weekend I was reminded once again to whom I belong, to whom we belong. The God who was in our coming together as a family, the God who walked with us as we passed through the fires and rivers of life, has been and is even now the keeper of our flames. The One who loves us, has loved us all the days of our lives, sat with us on the porch this weekend and is waiting for us to come home. Thanks be to God for all the tender mercies, the saving graces, the memories bound up in folders and printed on yellowed papers, the love and laughter of my work camp family. A-men… A-she.

Benediction from John Claypool

I sat in the congregation, worn out with sadness, weary of my sudden entry into the world of grief and adulthood. He began to speak the words of benediction and tears came to my eyes as that Balm of Gilead bathed me in the certainty of God’s presence in my wrecked world. I was not the only one who found solace in those words, who held on to the assurance that all would be well because redemption was in process. When his trial by fire came in the death of his young daughter, those words delivered at the end of worship, broken and tentative, had power and peace still. Years later, those words of benediction, delivered by another voice in my daughter’s church, lift me up from the miry clay and set me up once again on the solid rock of God’s love. In my heart I hear John’s voice, measured and deliberate, as he blesses us upon our going out after worship. “Depart now in the fellowship of God the Father. And as you go, remember... by the goodness of God you were born into this world, by the grace of God you have been kept all the day long even until this hour. And, by the love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus, you are being redeemed.” Depart now... We cannot stay in one place forever. A pilgrim people in our faith and in our daily lives, we are called to leave the safety of the known and launch out into a world full of people who need us and whom we need. The fellowship of God the Father... The image of God as father is not in vogue today. Other words have taken its place but none convey for me the same sense of strength and safety that a true father gives his children. A father is the one who calls his children to reach deep within and transcend self imposed limits, to keep on trying when all seems lost, who catches you when you jump off into the deep end and sink under the water, who laughs with and at you as you find your way in the human comedy of life. And as you go, remember... “Don’t forget”, God says in so many ways. Do this in remembrance of me, our reminder to celebrate Jesus’ life and death and resurrection as we share a meal. Our memories help center us when we lose our way. I remember when God loved me through Walt and Mary Lynn, Brother Kannon, Mrs. Tyre, my grandma, and many others who have been the faces and arms of God for me. On rare and wonderful occasion, the warm, all pervading and enveloping Presence of God has wrapped around me, and the memory of those times sustains me when I am lost in the dark clouds of unknowing. I remember. Goodness of God...I have known a few people who were genuinely good. They weren’t boring one dimensional plaster saints, just so good they shone. Their faces reflected this and when I was with them, I felt bathed in their goodness. I want the wonderful gift of life I received to reflect the goodness of the God who was a part of my coming into this world. Grace of God... After sixty five years, I am beginning to see the protective hand of God at work in my life. During the struggles, the sins, the hurt and the losses, there has also been joy, accomplishment, gains, and celebration. I am always upheld by the grace of God whether I am aware of it or not. Wonderful, marvelous grace that is greater than I can ever imagine...grace that supplies my need and lets me soar with the eagles. Love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus... I am a Christian and in the face of Jesus, I see God’s love. God loved us enough to become as we are, to risk it all to be one of us, to try to help us glimpse the Love from which we are created. You are being redeemed...It never occurred to me in my youth that redemption was a process. “Once saved, always saved” was one of the tenets of my Baptist upbringing. I sang “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb” and felt safely secure among the company of the saints. Now in my old age, I value the process of redemption that has continued all my life. Right now, sitting at the beach with my family, listening to the grandsons noisy play, I am being redeemed. This morning as I watched the sunrise over the ocean, I was being redeemed. Each day that I live with conscious awareness of God’s goodness, grace and love, I am a part of my redemption, my transformation to a fully realized Child of God. I depart now in the fellowship of God my Father and as I go, I remember... By the goodness of God I was born into this world and by the grace of God I have been kept all the day long, even until this hour. And by the love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus, I am being redeemed. Amen.